Recent research from SuperData suggests that investment in enterprise VR is rising steeply and will reach nearly $170 million in 2017. Although popular in gaming, multiple business sectors are seeing the value of VR for training. These include education, healthcare, and transportation to name a few.

It is well established that the immersive character of VR alone leads to gains in learning of over 30% relative to standard video, e-learning or textbook training. Given the fact that approximately one-third of business and technology leaders lack confidence in the educational and job training programs in the United States (Pew Research Center), VR holds strong promise to address these important shortcomings in training.

With the price of VR technology declining quickly, more and more entrepreneurs are entering the VR market in hopes of riding this technological wave. Unfortunately, with each new corporation and new offering, the market gets more and more saturated. To succeed in this crowded market, a company needs to find a way to set itself apart from the competition.

Best practices that optimize learning and retention have been validated in a number of scientific studies, many of which were conducted by our data science team. Each of these best practices lead to a learning boost of 5-20% and when combined can lead to performance boosts that are larger than those observed from VR. The course needed to set oneself apart in the crowded VR business sector is clear; take advantage of the immersive properties associated with VR and add scientifically-validated best practices in learning. Nearly all of these best practices are easy to implement and can add immediate value. It is worth mentioning that these best practices are very general and can be applied in any training setting. Thus, they can be applied in VR, augmented and mixed reality, or standard video and textbook training settings.

Scientifically-validated best practices in learning, combined with the immersive property of VR is the wave of the future for optimized training. This exciting combination will speed learning, increase retention, and will lower training costs. The implications for education, healthcare and many other enterprise sectors is clear.